Mary Katherine Smart was on her way to report her sister's abduction to her parents when the 9-year-old spotted the kidnapper in another part of the house and became frightened.
That second sighting sent Mary Katherine back to her bed and is the reason she waited roughly two hours before telling anyone her sister was gone, police said Wednesday morning.
This new explanation contradicts earlier reports that Elizabeth's kidnapper threatened Mary Katherine.
"The information that (police spokesman) had the very first morning was from the father; he said that," Salt Lake Police Capt. Scott Atkinson said. "The initial reports from the father that he thought the guy had spoken to Mary Katherine were not true."
Through four interviews, investigators have learned that the kidnapper apparently did not see Mary Katherine when he took Elizabeth at gunpoint from the room both girls shared between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. June 5.
Police Chief Rick Dinse also said Mary Katherine heard the kidnapper threaten Elizabeth while he was in the house.
Dinse appeared at a press conference Wednesday morning to clarify reports of what Mary Katherine saw and defend his department's previous refusal to clarify what transpired in the bedroom between Mary Katherine and the kidnapper.
"There is no conspiracy effort here to keep information from the media," Dinse said. "We are not telling you everything. . . . If you haven't figured that out by now, that's the truth."
Two weeks into the case, police are still revealing very little about their investigation, and Elizabeth's family remains optimistic she's still alive.
"I feel that she is alive, she's waiting to be found," Elizabeth's father, Edward Smart, said.
Dinse said Wednesday he still believed police would "eventually" resolve this case and "Mary Katherine's a big part of doing that."
Susanne Mitchell, director of the Children's Justice Center in Salt Lake City, said it's not unusual for children to recall more information about an incident over a period of time.
Because children don't understand the way a criminal investigation is conducted, details that may not seem significant to them may be brought up in later interviews, Mitchell said.
But in other cases, the interaction between a child and suspect is so brief that the child really doesn't have more to tell.
"It's hard to expect children to have a photographic memory and repaint the picture in great clarity," she said.
As of Wednesday, Dinse said police had received 8,000 to 10,000 leads, 1,300 of which were worthy of follow-up. Investigators have already looked into almost 900 of those, Dinse said.
"Some of these leads are very promising," Dinse said.
Police and FBI agents set up three checkpoints in the Smarts' neighborhood Tuesday night to "identify all the people that come through, especially on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning," FBI agent Dan Roberts said.
While the possibility of finding Elizabeth alive diminishes with time, there are exceptions that still give her family reason to hope.
 | Deseret News graphic Elizabeth Smart kidnapping: Facts and rumorsRequires Adobe Acrobat. |
Bob Smither, co-founder of the Laura Recovery Center Foundation, said his organization has worked on cases where children have returned home safely after more than a month.
In one case, two girls, similar in age to Elizabeth, were abducted near Houston, Texas, and taken into Mexico. After 33 days the abductors released the two girls in rural Mexico. The two girls found a telephone, called their family and were eventually returned home.
"It's really hard to know what's going on in the abductor's mind," Smither said. "One can certainly hope and pray if Elizabeth is being held by someone that something will touch his heart and let her walk to a telephone."
Smither said that the enormous volunteer effort in Salt Lake City was the largest response his group had ever witnessed in more than 30 ground searches. That, combined with the continual hope expressed by Elizabeth's family in media interviews, are reasons to believe a happy ending is still possible, Smither said.
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